Gerry Vassilatos Explores Lost Science

As a visionary in the history of science, Gerry Vassilatos continues to gain high acclaim in his chosen field of research.

The writer of over a dozen books and more than fifty articles, Vassilatos shows continuing interest in exploring the history and philosophy of science.

His method was decidedly old fashion in that “From the eighties through the nineties…Gerry Vassilatos combed through libraries, patent records, and histories to amass a broad collection of research that was matchless in scope and ambition. His efforts to find and renew interest in the lost and ignored scientific discoveries of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have allowed an entire generation of new…researchers to retrace the steps and to make new leaps of their own. It is without question a remarkable effort and remains a crucial resource for any who have dared to take the first steps toward higher understanding of the world we live in (borderlandsciences.org).”

Vassilatos’ choice of subject matter distinguishes him from most other authors. The primary focus of Vassilatos’ research is the declared failures of notable scientists. Although Vassilatos deals with individuals of international scientific reputation, such as Nikola Tesla, T. Henry Moray, Philo T. Farnsworth and Sir William Crookes, he does not focus on their recognized triumphs. What seizes Vassilatos imagination is the so-called “lost work” of these notable scientists as well as the forgotten, but nonetheless documented, research of other less known scientists.

In Vassilatos’ book, Lost Science, he pulls no punches in explaining why he would bother to follow this line of inquiry: “American Money is made by resisting discoveries and technologies, not by promoting them (Bayside, Ca: Borderland Sciences Research Foundation, 1997).” While the notion of entrenched power protecting its privileges is no new insight, its systematic application to what the general public is assured is the eternally objective world of scientific investigation is most unsettling. Not the mere claim, but rather the complex body of undeniable evidence Vassilatos brings to his prove his line of argument. Following the logic of his discoveries propels Vassilatos research back and forth across time, seeking out first notable scientists and their ignored discoveries and then based on the science he “re-discovers” on to the work of other scientists and researchers not so well respected or frankly those said to be by Establishment figures—nothing more than frauds.

By consulting the original publications, patents and news accounts of the day of scientists such a R. Raymond Rife, Thomas Townsend Brown, and Vladimir Gavereau, Vassilatos is then ready to reconsider the research, working inventions and claims of men such as Baron Karl Von Reichenbach, Antonio Meucci and the backwoods country genius Nathan Stubblefield.

If most of these names are unknown to you it is not entirely the fault of the American public school system. Few individuals who are not deeply versed in the history of science would be able to identify many of these scientists—notable as some were in their day. The point of Vassilatos’ ongoing work is to follow the promise of Victorian scientific research and then to report on how the subsequent laboratory work and field trials—and the new direction demonstrated by those activities—never saw application in everyday life. Vassilatos’ investigations and writings on scientists after the Victorian era are to first demonstrate how their scientific work developed and then outline, in considerable detail, the ways in which their work was ultimately suppressed.

In the end Vassilatos has two essentially conjoined points to his work: first, that technologies have been discovered that are not utilized (and have so for literally decades) and that as a consequence the profiteers have forced all humanity to live in conditions literally centuries behind what our science should have already achieved. Strong claims to say the least.

If all this sounds too extreme one has only to leaf through one of his books. In say, White Ray Conductors, the first of his multi-volume Vril Compendium series (there are 11 volumes so far) Vassilatos does nothing less than provide exact reproductions of long forgotten scientific journal articles and even entire patents. Although this is not light or even at times interesting reading (for the non-scientist) Vassilatos’ point is still well-made. Here is the undeniable proof. Check it for yourself. Whatever else may be said of Vassilatos’ many books on these scientists and their ignored or discredited discoveries these volumes are extremely well documented.

One other point that needs to be made is that Vassilatos is not examining anomalies. In 1973, anthropologist Roger W. Wescott coined the phrase, anomalistics, which is the use of scientific methods to evaluate anomalies with the aim of finding a rational explanation. Wescott was specifically interested in the “…serious and systematic study of all phenomena that fail to fit the picture of reality provided for us by common sense or by the established sciences.”

William R. Corliss was the recognized Dean of anomalous phenomena. An American physicist and writer Corliss was a much respected writer who over the course of his career produced 13 educational books about astronomy, outer space and space travel for NASA and (as if that were not enough) he also wrote a similar number of books for the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Science Foundation. Corliss’ basic scientific writings are standards in their fields and they stand to this day.

Corliss like all researchers regularly consulted academic journals as well as a wide host of scientific magazines. In peer reviewed journals as well as the scientific press Corliss began to find one article after another that described or reported upon anomalous phenomena. These accounts caught Corliss’ attention. Corliss was especially “interested in unusual weather, ball lighting, geophysical oddities, extraordinary mirages and the like.” Yet, clearly given the place of their publication these accounts did not challenge let alone outrage mainstream scientists.

For over 25 years Corliss sorted through some 40,000 articles from the scientific literature through more than 12,000 volumes of scientific journals, including the complete files of Nature, Science, Icarus, Weather, and so on. While certainly not a revolutionary Corliss’ curiosity resulted in a series of themed Sourcebooks, Handbooks and Catalogs all dealing with anomalies gleamed from the papers of the scientific press, itself.

Corliss’ work came to mind in this review of Vassilatos work because once you’ve read through the history and see the documents offered by Vassilatos many of the anomalies cited in Corliss’ compilation volumes seem to have all new meanings. For Vassilatos while he is doing nothing less than reviewing the historical literature in that very act itself is forced on more than one occasion to challenge accepted scientific theory.

Unfortunately, Vassilatos, while a dedicated researcher who unquestionably has a staggering command of the available (and very often extremely obscure) scientific literature, he is not always a graceful writer. In, Secrets of the Cold War Technology: Project HAARP and Beyond, while it admittedly deals with extremely technical issues this volume suffers not so much from the winding ways of hard science as it does from simply bad writing (Bayside, Ca: BSRF, 1996). No matter how many times I have read this book’s prologue I still cannot understand Vassilatos’ basic distinction between symbols and models.

Fortunately, I was introduced to Vassilatos’ body of work by first reading, Lost Science, which is a fascinating account of science and biography. In this book, Vassilatos takes considerable time to examine the personal histories and motivations of those scientists and researchers examined in this book. While never ignoring the basic question of the scientific validity of their various discoveries the question why these individuals departed so radically from standard scientific doctrine becomes a fundamental part of Vassilatos’ overall investigation.

If all this sounds contradictory it is not. Vassilatos is always focused on the scientific work being reviewed. In his sustained efforts to get it right, Vassilatos has a tendency to depend too much on reproduced patent documents and other such schematics. If his intended audience was exclusively the scientific community then this gathering of patents, journal articles and the rest would be more than enough to prove his case. But Vassilatos’ position is clearly to make this historical information known to a public audience.

Aside from his many books and articles one can listen to a wide array of interviews with Vassilatos on YouTube. Perhaps more relevant for Vassilatos’ overall scientific claims are the YouTube short videos of experiments offered as demonstrations of the new principles he claims based on his research exist.

Yet by his own admission Vassilatos’ focus on hard science is not meant to drive the average reader away. Quite the opposite. In his ongoing writings on ground radio, geoaetheric engines, virus-destroying ray machines, gravitational warp research, radiant space energy, and controlled fusion devices Vassilatos can be the most romantic of writers. By his relentless presentation of suppressed science, Vassilatos is offering us ultimately a vision of a credible future fueled by an accurate understanding of the material world that has so much to offer if we but cast aside our own preconceptions and fears.